I always say, come for the pro-cars, stay for the story.
Jim, I did participate in the scenes with my cars. In the scene where the vehicles are responding to the crash past the theater, I am driving my M-M. Another guy, the owner of the local Harley Davidson dealership, is driving my Travelall in the scene. I was dressed as an extra, in uniform. Interestingly, the fire engines in that scene were actual Huntington WV FD engines that had actually responded to the real crash, and the police motorcycle did so as well. An antique engine from Kenova WV FD was also present for the filming but broke down between the rehearsal runs and the filming of the scene - that engine was the first unit on the scene of the real crash, as the airport is actually in Kenova. The scene was filmed on the streets of Huntington, where the movie takes place.
I also was in the scene of the crash itself, again playing one of the ambulance crew. My Traveall was there but didn't drive during the scene, so I was just "running around looking busy". You can kinda see me if you know where to look and pause the DVD. My action involved running next to actors Anthony Mackie ("Nate Ruffin") and Brian Geraghty ("Tom Bogdan"), so I got to talk with them a bit, and I also talked for a while on a break with a lovely girl who turned out to be actress January Jones ("Carole Dawson", Red's wife). The plane crash absolutely took my breath away, they used a real DC-9 plane, cut up and rigged with propane for fire. It was very realistic. The crash scene was filmed outside an airport in Atlanta and took three nights to film. The reason the crash scene seemed so eerie was that the entire crash scene was filmed with only one movie light representing "the moon" - all the rest of the light in the scene was from the fire or the emergency vehicle lights, there were no other movie lights.
The story itself is very much based on the true events. A few characters were changed to include multiple "stories" in one character, or where a particular person did not want to participate so another character was substituted. But the coaches, president, and Nate Ruffin the team captain were real people and their stories were portrayed realistically. At the end, you can see photos of the real Jack Lengyl and Red Dawson with the actors who played them. One of the folks I met was good friends with Red Dawson. Everyone I met when I was in Huntington was somehow connected to the crash, either a student at Marshall at the time or people who lost friends/family. They all wanted the story told correctly.
It was a great story and a great movie, and I really enjoyed participating in it. (The money was good, too.)
Here's me on the movie set with the "crashed" plane during daylight, with lots of propane tanks.